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Tubeworker

Tubeworker: a platform for rank-and-file London Underground workers, telling you what the bosses and bureaucrats won't. Tubeworker reports on workplace issues, puts forward strategies that we think will help workers win, and supports militant, democratic trade unionism. It promotes unity and challenges inequality.

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The views expressed in Tubeworker and on this blog are those of the authors, not of London Underground Ltd or TfL. Obviously.

Promotion

LU bosses provoked widespread outrage on Friday, when they uploaded a new document on the role of CSA2s to the company Intranet.

The subject of the document - exactly what CSA2s can and can't do - has been the focus of negotiations between LU and union reps for months, negotiations that were very much ongoing. LU's decision to upload the document represented a clear attempt to bypass those talks.

LUL managers appear to think they are in the TV series 'Life on Mars' as they have woken up in the 1970s (or even earlier) and banned pregnant women from driving trains. They have thrown a particular woman - Kyria Pohl - off her Train Operator training course, and stated that yes, this is because they will no longer allow pregnant women to be in training or to drive a train.

Night Tube drivers have won their fight with management for a fair chance at moving into full-time jobs.

They had previously been locked in by a ridiculous rule that they had to stay put for 18 months, fifty per cent longer than the standard one year waiting time to move. As usual, management remained intransigent until strike action loomed, with NT drivers delivering a whopping vote in the ballot - at which point management suddenly saw the injustice in the 18-month bar and agreed to relax it.

RMT and Aslef have now declared disputes with LU over issues affecting Night Tube drivers: their exclusion from full-time jobs, and the unfair application of the overtime rate (full-time drivers get OT payments for any hours worked over 35/week, for example in the result of delays, suspensions, etc., but as Night Tube drivers, on 16-hour contracts, will never hit this threshold, they get no extra pay if their duties overrun).

The situation for many station staff regarding movements, transfers, and promotions is dreadful. Many of us were displaced into locations we never asked to go to and now seemingly have no way of getting out, while others of us who want to stay where we are face forcible displacement.

It's all the chaotic consequence of an unnecessary regrading and cuts programme.

Here's Tubeworker's novel suggestion: employ enough staff to do the work, and only move us if we've volunteered (either via applying for promotion or by requesting a move).

Ticket Machine Servicing (TMS) training is now a compulsory aspect of the CSA2 training programme at Ashfield House. That means LU is saving £13,000 per year per worker graduating from that course: CSA2s are being paid £23k p/a to do work that a SAMF used to get £36k for. It's an almighty con.

When RMT (and, we hope, TSSA) relaunch disputes over the fallout from "Fit for Fuck All", they should make this scandal one of the issues around which we build demands.

So the company is advertising part-time Night Tube drivers' jobs. Here at Tubeworker, we like to see new jobs created and to see staff getting the opportunity to work reduced hours. And if Night Tube duties are done by part-timers who want to work those hours, then there will be no need for full-timers to work any extra night turns.

But many say the training is too short to prepare them for the unwanted hike in responsibility. LU has even been throwing newly-qualified supervisors in at the deep end by using them to cover for staff shortage on their existing groups.

Bad enough to have the new job thrust upon them from next year, but even worse to use them to paper over cracks in coverage caused by unfilled vacancies and Fit for the Future training.